Paul Craig Roberts has an e-book out called The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and the Economic Dissolution of the West. I have not read it, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But someone sent me a clip from an interview in which Roberts says libertarians are out to lunch for trying to blame the financial crisis on something other than deregulation. I have taken the position that “deregulation” is largely a myth, and that what deregulation did occur was irrelevant to the financial crisis. (See the discussion in Rollback, for example.)
I like Roberts, whose analysis of the neocons, war, and civil liberties is top notch. I can hardly believe he is defending this thesis, so I will need to take a look at it. Roberts was a supply-sider and certainly no Austrian or end-the-Fed guy, so although he may be critical of the Fed from time to time, this is going to be a major blind spot of his.
In the meantime, the answer to Roberts is David Stockman’s forthcoming book The Great Deformation: The Corruption of American Capitalism. This is one of the most eye-opening books I’ve read in years, and you’re talking about someone who thought his eyes were already open. Even if you think you already know how the Fed can damage an economy, you’ll feel like a novice while reading Stockman.